Benefit Justice Summit, University of London Union, Sat 9 March

6 March 2013

There has been a growing wave of protest over the hated Tory policy of the Bedroom Tax which is set to be introduced in April.

Big public meetings and a series of demonstrations are taking place around the country.

Since the Tories were elected they have been on the rampage attacking Disability Living Allowance and capping levels of household benefits. They are driving people into poverty and destitution.

The Benefits Justice Summit is an opportunity for everyone to come together to share experiences and debate the way forward to fight these vicious cuts.

Benefit Justice Summit, 11am at ULU, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY

With workshops on • welfare reforms causing poverty, debt and homelessness • how we can oppose them • building mass resistance • Link up and build the campaign locally and nationally

The Campaign for Benefit Justice is uniting all those opposed to devastating benefit cuts / By linking up we can challenge the Government’s divide and rule tactics and unite the 99% of people hit by these cuts / Bringing together disabled people, tenants, unemployed, trade unions, students, pensioners, single parents and others to oppose benefit cuts.

2 comments

Derek Ray said:

The problems that we have in this country is that there is no building of council houses.We have families who are crammed into one bedroom flats/houses and councils have not enough one bedroom accomadation to go around.This bedroom tax is not going to solve the issue of these families it is only going to increase the burden of people whom are going to lose their benefits.There are plenty of empty properties that should be bought by the councils to lease them at affordable rents and housing benefit can be still maintained instead of it being squandered to greedy landlords.

In 1980 the Tories stopped the manadory miminum size for homes. This in the intervening years lead to a downsizing of homes, and we now have ‘homes’ too small to be considered as suitable for the raising of families. In almost all European countries a home is measured in square-metres, perversly in the UK, we size a home by the number of bedrooms. This has lead in London, to the illogical position that; a large bedsite by square-metres (or square-foot)can be larger than a two-bedroom flat.

The bedroom tax is unweildly, and is only going to exasperate the bureaucracy of social housing, without addressing the underlining causes of an inadequate supply of suitable homes. This bed-room tax ‘reform’ does not tackle the root problems.